


Restless

by paraboobizarre



Category: The Following
Genre: Blood and Gore, Dark, Dreams, M/M, anthropophagy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-10
Packaged: 2017-12-07 23:57:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paraboobizarre/pseuds/paraboobizarre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hardly ever dreams anymore...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Restless

**Author's Note:**

  * For [oximore](https://archiveofourown.org/users/oximore/gifts).



> ...because of Restless ;)

He hardly ever dreams anymore since they left the townhouse. He used to dream a lot, stupid, silly stuff; nightmares, too, sometimes and he would kick and lash out in his dreams, hitting Paul. 

If he dreams anything at all these days, the images make even less sense, present and past melting together, all of it a confusing mess and he wakes up in the morning with the distinct feeling that he forgot something vital he saw in his dream that night.  
There are recurring scenes though and these are the only ones he really remembers once he wakes up. Not that it's helping him any.

He's standing in class, all the kids milling around, doing fingerpaints, laughing and chattering, but it's totally silent in the room, their lips move but no words come out. A little girl throws her head back and laughs, orange paint dripping from her fingers, but all he hears is the tinkling of the wind chime hanging in the window.  
He goes over to look out of the window, but there's nothing out there but a hot sun blinding him, forcing him to cover his eyes.  
When he turns back again, the kids are all sitting at their desks – no paint anywhere – their books open in front of them, looking at him expectantly and he knows he should say something right now but there's sand in his head and he can't remember what it was.

A boy in the front row, wearing a blue and orange checkered, washed out looking shirt, his curly hair sticking close to his skull, raises his hand to ask a question.  
“What's a Paul?”

“That's not how the game works,” Jacob hears himself say, his mouth forming the words out of nowhere. It's not a good enough answer but it's the only one he's got.

“Yes, Jacob, what _is_ a Paul?” The voice coming from the back row is something cold and malignant, something with sharp teeth in it and he can feel a shiver run down his spine, in spite of the dessert sun outside.  
Emma is sitting in the last row by the window in one of the little chairs, stirring a pot of green paint with one finger, looking at him challengingly.  
“Jacob?” His mother says, suddenly standing next to him, making him jump. There's concern in her voice but she doesn't look like he remembers her. It's the mum he remembers from the pictures at home, with fewer worries and wrinkles, her hair longer, face younger.  
  


There's other dreams, too, nicer ones but they always turn sour. 

He never knows where he is at the beginning. There are giant dunes, sloping upwards, curving back down again, going on for miles and miles, straining up against a brilliantly white sky, but they are not made out of sand. When he crouches down and buries his hand in it, it's grainy and soft at the same time, the color of crushed white egg shells. He starts walking, knowing he'll always end up in the same place, no matter where he goes. He trudges up a dune, his feet slipping on egg shells and he loses his footing, sliding down a few feet again but eventually he makes it to the top. His lungs are burning but it's okay, because the next part is always worth it.  
He takes a run, curling in on himself and rolls down the dune. It's fantastic and sooner or later it always feels like he is flying, like he left the weight of his body back at the top of that dune.  
He lands on his back, laughing, stretching out on the soft ground.

“What are you so happy about?” Paul asks, parting the egg shell colored dunes of the sheets around them with one hand to lean over him and run his hand through Jacob's hair. Jacob simply shrugs, pulling Paul in for a kiss instead of answering. 

The kisses are always different. Sometimes it's like caramel, so heavy and sweet he can practically feel it sitting on his tongue, melting in his mouth, sometimes it feels like little sparks of electricity, connecting between their tongues, a light sting every time their lips touch until it spreads out and he rolls Paul over, crawling on top of him, running his hands over every inch of bare skin he can reach, Paul's breath coming a little faster, echoing in his head, that familiar gasp when Jacob reaches down between his legs.  
His fingers card through Paul's hair, reaching down to cup the back of his head and pull him closer but his fingers dip into something cold and wet. Pulling his hand back, his palm is wet and so is Paul's hair where he touched him. Water drips down on Paul's chest, the sound of the drops splashing so loud, Jacob has to cover his ears and suddenly the bed shifts beneath them.

“What's wrong?” Paul asks, looking up at him, concern bleeding from his eyes all over his face and Jacob watches in horror as the pillows around Paul start to drift away on the water. Waves crash against the walls of their bedroom, the waters rising and the sheets around them unravel slowly, drift out to sea.  
Paul's head slides off the pillow as it sinks, water sloshing around his face and the last thing Jacob sees before Paul goes under is him smiling and closing his eyes.

The dream he hates most though is the one with Paul on the couch, when he takes the pillow and suffocates him again and again. He puts the pillow over his head and presses down, feels how Paul bucks up against him, once twice three times and it feels like a life time passes before he dares lift it again.  
But it's not always Paul lying on the couch underneath him and they're not always dead.

He lifts the pillow and it's Emma, glowering at him.  
It's Ryan Hardy, sneering at him, taunting him in a sing-song voice _I stabbed your boyfriend_ before he sobers up again and looks at him in what's supposed to be earnestness but Jacob can see the contempt in his eyes, _oh, sorry, I forgot: you're not gay_ and he laughs.  
He lifts the pillow and it's his dad, looking at him disapprovingly, shaking his head. _Can't even do that right, can you?_  
He lifts the pillow and it's Joe Carroll, smiling up at him like his dad never did.

He lifts the pillow and he's staring back into his own face, his mirror image opening its mouth to scream but there's nothing in there but a dark, bottomless pit that's intent on swallowing the world whole and Jacob presses the pillow down over its face again, holding on for dear life.


	2. Epilogue - The Nightmare

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The light flickers and the first panel slides up...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of an epilogue to Restless - a nightmare scene that didn't quite fit with the rest of the story but that I really liked nonetheless.
> 
> WARNING: It's dark, gruesome and gory, so if you scare easily or are squeamish, don't read this.

He unlocks the door to their townhouse and the moment he steps inside, he knows something is off. Everything looks the way it's supposed to, but it's that kind of gut feeling he has in dreams. He turns around, looking out the opened front door to where he parked his car.  
It's subtle at the beginning and he barely notices it. The line of houses on the horizon start stretching back, fleeing away from him, getting smaller; the second line follows them, power lines elongating, the neighbor's front lawn suddenly looking the length of a football field with a tiny, doll-sized house at its other end and Jacob winces in pain as his ears pop, the world around him suddenly submersed into water, all sounds dulled down.  
The door falls into its lock on its own, the sound it makes more felt than heard. 

“You're here!” Sarah is standing in their kitchen, pots and pans lining the counter in front of her, cutting up something on a board, obviously making dinner. He sees her hand moving on the chopping board but when he wants to peer over the army of pots all he can see is his own reflection bent out of shape against the domed shiny metal. Gripping the edge of the counter with both hands he strains upward, trying to see and feels his feet leaving the floor.

Someone pries his hand off the counter top, taking it in his, a familiar voice telling him: “Your mum already has enough to do without you bothering her all the time.”  
Jacob whirls around, looking up at the person the voice belongs to. It's him, immaculately starched white shirt and somber looking tie under his white coat, name stitched on the breast but his face is all wrong. It's not there. Where those familiar features should be, instead there is a blank, flesh colored plane, looking down at him.  
“Dad?” Jacob blurts and the dummy cocks its head to one side and he feels that familiar lump balling up in the pit of his stomach, _shame on you_ , even if the thing above him can't look at him like his dad used to. 

“Look at yourself!” The figure hisses, crouching down to his level and starting to put his clothes back in order. “Do you _want_ to embarrass me?”  
Jacob follows his dad's deft fingers as they are tucking his shirt back into his pants and pulling his sweater vest back down again. He recognizes it immediately – the blue, red and green argyle pattern, the scratchy white shirt underneath and he feels the familiar sting where his new dress shoes are pinching his toes.  
“Unbelievable,” his father figure mutters under its breath, roughly combing back Jacob's unruly hair and Jacob remembers the night of the banquet dinner in his dad's honor and how they put him in these clothes and propped him up on a chair like a ventriloquist's dummy. _And this is our son, Jacob. Say Hello, Jacob._  
He was eight.

“Dad,” he tries again, clutching at the big hands currently fussing with his clip-on tie, “Dad, where's Paul?” His voice sounds high-pitched and whiny. An eight year old's voice.  
The hands stop, the blank face coming so close to his face, Jacob has to pull back, that vacant face terrifying in all its unnaturalness.  
“We don't have time for your imaginary friends just now, Jacob,” his father's voice chides from behind the expressionless blob of flesh.  
“We're late for the exhibit.” And with that his dad rises again, grabs his hand and pulls him towards the living room. 

Where their bookshelves, stereo and TV used to line the walls, there are now dark panels of wood. The room is empty, save for a single bulb dangling from the ceiling. There's a coin slot near the door and his dad hands him a quarter, motioning for him to put it in. Turning the coin over in his hand, his sweat starting to coat the metal, Jacob knows he doesn't want to know what's behind those panels and he doesn't want to drop the quarter down the slot. His dad squeezes his hand almost painfully, bones crunching and churning against one another and he rises up on tiptoes and fumbles the quarter into the slot. 

The light flickers and the first panel slides up.

Behind thick glass, smeared with fatty fingerprints there's a diorama. It shows a desk, stacked high with books, an overflowing waster paper basket next to it and in the corner there's a human skeleton strung up on wires, like he remembers it from his dad's office. The skull is grinning at him, a loosely knotted tie dangling from it's neck, a Fedora hat placed haphazardly on it's shiny skull.  
Something is placed behind the stacks of books. Jacob can just about see the washed out brown of a dusty wig and behind that there's a painted window, showing the glimpse of a massive brown stone in the background.

His father bends down to wipe the dust of a plaque mounted in front of the display.  
“The way of the world,” he reads off it, the empty face turning to look at him and even though there's nothing there, Jacob knows it's smiling at him. 

There's the whirring of wires in the walls and suddenly a chair shoots out from behind the desk and Jacob's heart stutters in his chest.  
It's him, a dummy of him, sitting, no bolted to the chair, an ill-fitting brown wig sitting on his head. He can see the rough joints where the puppet was put together, a wire coming out of the top of its head and when it pulls up, raising the head, he stares into his own, eternally blank puppet face.  
“See how it's done?” His father asks, before he knocks lightly against the glass and the panel starts sliding down again. Out of the corner of his eye, before his dad pulls him along, Jacob thinks he can see the puppet's glass eyes following him. 

 

The placque under the next panel simply says “The Tower”. The panel slides up but it's no diorama this time. It's them.  
There's their bed, conveniently arranged sideways so that you can see everything and on the bed there's Paul and him. No puppets this time. He can see the sheets move around them, slipping down and off the bed as they move. The tinny echo of their panting breaths drips through a set of speakers at both sides of the display, filling the room around him.  
Behind the glass Paul tips up Jacob's head, kissing him, catching his bottom lip between his teeth, biting him gently and they both smile, Jacob's hands sliding up around the globes of Paul's ass, pulling him closer between his splayed thighs, a deep moan crashing through the speakers.  
Next to him, his father clucks under his breath.  
“That's not how it's done.”

“Honey, dinner is ready!” His mum calls from the kitchen, prompting his father to rub his hands in an exaggerated show of glee before he hurries into the kitchen, leaving Jacob alone before the display.  
He steps closer to the glass, wiping at the surface because it's becoming hard to see, but no matter how hard he tries to see something, it's like the display has filled up with fog, everything vanishing in that white mass. 

Something smashes against the glass, the surface trembling under the impact and Jacob jumps back, his heart beating so fast he can feel the sting of it in his chest.  
A hand parts the fog inside, palm pressing up against the glass, leaving a wet trace as it smears down, the strange squeaky sound of skin dragging against glass stutters through the speakers. 

“Jacob?” Paul's voice comes through the speakers, sounding tinny and hollow. “Are you out there?”  
“Jacob? Jacob, something's in here with me,” he whispers, the voice crashing through the speakers harshly, panic vibrating just underneath its surface.  
“Jacob! Dinner!” His mum calls again.  
“Jacob, please, there's something in here!”  
“Jacob! I'm not going to tell you again!”  
“Please, don't leave...”

And then the panel grates against its guideway as it slowly slides down again, Paul's voice getting slower and deeper as if his batteries are running out, begging him through the speakers.

“Come on,” his mum says, suddenly standing behind him, “I made your favorite.”  
Jacob chances a last look at the panel but it's closed now, the speakers are silent and he squeezes his eyes shut, takes a deep breath in an effort to calm his nerves. When he opens his eyes again, he's sitting at the dinner table, a plate with a large slice of pie in front of him. 

“Oh, Katherine, you have, as per usual, surpassed yourself,” his dad announces, toasting to his mum, who looks down on her plate, blushing like a bashful little girl at the compliment.  
“Oh you, “ she chides softly, reaching for the salad bowl to put some onto his dad's plate. 

Jacob picks up his fork, prodding cautiously at the pie's crust. There's meat in it.  
“This is not my favorite,” he tells his mum, wincing as his father slaps him over the head seconds later.  
“Your mum went to a lot of trouble to cook this lovely meal and you _will_ eat it, you hear me, young man?” He hisses, pointing his fork at Jacob's face. 

Despondently he picks up his fork, breaking off a piece of pie and tasting it. It is, considering the usual quality of his mum's cooking, surprisingly good. He polishes off his plate in record time, noticing the approving look of his father, before he asks for some more. His mum smiles at him, taking a sip of her wine and nodding in the direction of the kitchen, telling him to take some more.

He walks into the kitchen, is about to round the counter, when he suddenly slips on something. He stumbles, almost dropping his plate, but manages to grab the counter just in time. There's blood all over the floor. It stains the usually so pristine counter tops and shelves, bloody hand prints littering the kitchen isle.  
“Everything okay, sweetie?” His mum calls from the dining room, “I put the pie in the oven to keep it warm.”  
His hand shaking so hard he almost drops the expensive china plate in his hand, Jacob puts it down carefully on the counter. He doesn't want to see what's behind the counter but he is just _so_ hungry and that pie is so good. He needs some more. Steeling himself he rounds the kitchen island. 

There's Paul, naked, slumped against the fridge, sitting in a pool of his own blood, his head sunk against his chest. Sliced open from sternum to pubic bone, his ribcage is cut open, the two parts bent outwards like opened cabinet doors. His guts are spilling out from his belly onto the floor, some of them squashed, split open, with the tread of his mum's shoes on them. 

The sour taste of his own stomach acid spreading in his mouth, Jacob stumbles backwards, boards and knives clattering to the ground as he grabs at anything he can reach in an effort not to keel over. His hand touche something soft and squishy and his breaths turn into pants as he slowly turns his head to look at what he's gripping in his hand.  
It's a human heart, arteries and veins carefully severed, thick, already congealing blood oozing out of it, down over his hand, he is squeezing it so hard. 

“Oh shoot!” His mum wails, standing in the doorway. She wipes her hands in her pink blouse, leaving bloody traces. “That was supposed to a special treat for you. Your favorite, remember?”


End file.
